Shadows and Simulacra is Album of the Week
Out today the new Conflux Coldwell release Shadows and Simulacra has been made Album of the Week by Moonbuilding magazine, with an interesting review/debate on AI’s role in music published by the magazine. The new music extends my research into Vectorplasm into the sonic realm, also featuring a disturbing video channeling AI’s weirdcore ghosts…
“‘Shadows And Simulacra’ has not simply been thrown together - some real thought has been given to these compositions. Clipped vocals with breathy hisses and clicks surround squelchy synthlines on ‘Variation 4’. ‘Gool’ and ‘Goop’, two sides of the same sticky coin, are thick with glitchy textures that usher in a dark melody of haunting chord stabs (‘Goop’) and sinister merry-go-round loops (‘Gool’). ‘Sonic Vectorplasm’ sums the entire concept up, a ghostly drone that attracts a distortion of children’s voice, cries and chatter that build into a cacophony that resembles some sort of Dickensian dial-up-modem.
The question still remains however. What role, if any, should generative AI play in music? It should be noted that Coldwell isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, to play around with AI and large language models. Though keen to raise concerns about the lack of transparency around training data sets, Imogen Heap has been working with AI for years, developing AI.Mogen, an AI version of herself. Grimes, similarly, has previously invited artists to use AI to clone her voice, and would “split 50% royalties” on any successful song [like the former Mrs Musk needs the cash. Ed].
Art though is a fundamentally human experience. It’s how we enjoy life, how we share our own experiences, and relate to others that we otherwise wouldn’t. Maybe it is amazing that you can create a song or short film at the press of a button, but what is that song or short film if nothing other than a soulless approximation of everything that’s come before it? Some would argue that already happens - just look at the number of low effort remakes and reboots on any number of streaming services. But (and maybe this will change) human thought and time and effort still went into its creation.
Perhaps that’s why I find myself less abrasive and antagonised than I expected to be with what Conflux Coldwell has done with ‘Shadows And Simulacra’. I think I fundamentally wish that no genAI was used in the process at all. But Coldwell didn’t just write a prompt to generate a collection of songs. These didn’t just materialise at the press of a button. There is a concept and thought behind ‘Shadows And Simulacra’, in which he has breathed new life into fragments of what was essentially generative AI detritus. Regardless, I’m sure many people will have a lot of strong feelings about this record, and Coldwell himself isn’t even sure if the album abides by Bandcamp’s AI policy.”
The full article and link to the music can be found here:
https://moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-95-13-february-2026